Chester to Trentham Gardens

 It shouldn't have been a very difficult day today, only 77 kilometres and not too crazy hills. The wind seemed to be in our faces, but we had known worse and the sun was shining.

We cycled, as almost always on this trip, along beautiful quiet lanes and paths, although there are a few too many cobble sections for my liking. (We are not trying to recreate the Paris Roubais course in the West Midlands.)

After a lovely coffee and cake stop we continued on, and then most of the day was spent on canal towpaths.

Towpath cycling is very scenic and obviously no cars to worry about, but it's quite hard work as the paths are usually bumpy and quite narrow, with the added pressure to not fall in the water, particularly when passing people or dogs.

I was getting tired, so we stopped for refreshments at a pub and carried on along the Trent and Mersey Canal. This pepped me up for a while, but then came an 8 kilometre section with lock after lock all going upwards with steep cobbled paths. Also, two long sets of steps that we had to climb as well. 

My speed dropped and I couldn't keep up, but being a brave soldier, I carried on. 

Even in my sorry state I noticed that the canal was gradually changing colour, and by the time we reached the entrance to the Harecastle Tunnel, there was no denying that the water was bright orange. 

Reading up on it later it is caused by natural iron oxide leaching from historic coal mine workings into the water. It looks really alarming but according to the local council website, 'the water's colour is a unique, iconic characteristic of these specific industrial heritage sites'. So that's alright then, and it was very pretty. 

It was a relief to me too that a few kilometres further along in the Potteries, the water was back to the more traditional blue. 

By now, my energy level was down below zero and I chugged slowly behind Daz to our hotel. Just around the corner was a shop where I bought almost my own body weight in chocolate, which brought me back to life slightly. Then after an all you can eat carvery dinner, and half a bottle of wine I am back to my normal self again. Phew. 

Llandudno to Chester

 Another bright and windy day, but this time very much in our favour and it pushed us all the way from Llandudno to the top eastern edge of Wales.

Then we took a right hand turn down the estuary with distant views of England and The Wirral.

The wind was now not helping us, the sky was darkening and our lovely cycle path disappeared. As we reached Flint, and just as we had stopped to admire it's castle the rain started.

We needed to find shelter, and across the way was a concrete building with an overhang, so we raced to it. On closer inspection it had an open door, distant music playing, and a sign above it that said FTU.

I went inside to investigate, and it was the club bar for Flint Town United. It was completely empty apart from the bar man, and he told us to bring the bikes in and get a drink.

We were a couple of hours early to watch it, but the whole place was decked out for a celebration because FTU were in the Welsh Cup Final that afternoon.

Daz had a pint of FTU beer and the bar man gave us two little badges as we left. Apparently the last time that they won the cup was in about 1958 so it was all very exciting, unfortunately they lost 3 - 0 later that afternoon.

Then it wasn't too far to Chester and the cycle path reappeared, although the route got very technical and bumpy over the towpaths of a canal that took us right to our hotel.

All that was left to do then was a quick walking tour of the city before dinner.

Llandudno in the wind

Great start to the morning at Y Promenâd parkrun just down the coast from Llandudno at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos.

Slow relaxed start from me, but then I actually had to get up and dawdle round the beautiful course.

It was lovely to see Susan and Paul there too, and of course, we all collected the Y parkrun too.

We then headed off in opposite directions, they went Rhyl in their warm and dry car, and we went back to Llandudno on our trusty machines.

When we reached the far end of Llandudno Promenade the battery ran out on my bike, and at exactly that moment a huge storm roared towards us.

Daz cycled slowly on into the face of it, and I pedalled as hard as I can could but barely moved. We were buffeted from side to side too, and hit in the face with stinging rain or hail.

Eventually and bedraggled, we reached our hotel and then a couple of minutes later the wind dropped and the sun came out again.

Honestly, that's all true, and not exaggerated at all.

In the afternoon the wind was still really, really strong and we had coffee at the end of the pier.

Great views, and unfortunately the wind is invisible, so you will have to take my word for it.

It didn't spoil our day either, just made it more interesting and memorable.

Wrexham to Llandudno

Epic cycle day today covering 89 kilometres and over 800 metres of climbing. 

We set off from Wrexham and over the lumps and bumps of the Clwydian Range. I had never heard of it before, and there was no quick way around it, so we had to go over it.

I am very glad we did because it was a beautiful route and once at the top, we had an almost endless glide down the other side.

We stopped for refreshments at a café in Ruthin and I ate the biggest iced bun that I have ever seen. I was going to save half for later, but before I knew what had happened it was all gone.

It was then about 30 kilometres to the coast at Rhyl. I don't know if we missed the highlights of Rhyl, but it didn't look good so we pressed quickly on.

The pedestrian bridge in the shape of a sailing ship was pretty good though.

We hugged the north coast of Wales following Sustrans route 5 all the way to Llandudno with the weather gradually improving, and by the time we got to Colwyn Bay it was lovely.

Just a few kilometres from our target we passed a Mr Whippy van, and this time I polished off the biggest 99 ever.

Happy days.

Telford to Wrexham

 In the style of the Tour de France, we had a rest day yesterday, and I spent the whole day just lying around and relaxing.

Today we set off from Telford to cycle to Shrewsbury. 

It took a while to find the start of the route, but eventually we found a lift on this bridge that took us down to the road below and we were on our way. 

For about the first time ever, it all seemed to be downhill and we glided down to Shrewsbury. We had time to have a look around, although it was full of cars and not very exciting, and then we bumped the bikes down lots of steps to the train station.

We caught a train to a little place called Chirk, which is right next to the Shropshire Union Canal. Within two minutes we were on the tow path, and a few minutes later we reached the Whitehouse Canal Tunnel.

It was exciting , atmospheric, long and dark, and when we got to the other end it raining. Welcome to Wales we thought. 

The wind was picking up too as we approached the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

It is another amazing piece of engineering dating back to the Industrial Revolution.

With a big link to the start of our trip today, the Aqueduct was designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1805. It is a 307 metre long cast iron trough that is 38 metres above the River Dee, and is the longest and highest in the world.

Me and my lovely bike felt every metre of that height and distance, and were very relieved to reach the other side.

Our journey then carried on without any more scares to Wrexham, home of the newly and multiply promoted Wrexham Athletic Football Club.

There is a lot of building work going on as a massive new stand is being created.

We took a nice stroll around the town and it had a nice flock of concrete sheep scattered all around, a pretty church and a café with excellent scones.

Ludlow to Telford

 Today we wimped out a bit and reduced what was going to be a giant ride down to a more reasonable size by catching a train part of the way to Ludlow.

We set off from the station and could see high hills on the horizon, and for the next hour we battled up an enormous one, and straight into a headwind.

It's true that our ebikes took some of the strain, but it was good to get to the top, and most of the rest of the day seemed pleasantly downhill, or certainly easier.

The exception was Bridgnorth where we stopped for coffee. Up another really steep hill, and then down again just as quickly. 

From there we cycled alongside the lovely River Severn towards the Ironbridge Gorge, and parked our bikes right in the middle of the famous bridge.

The bridge was the first in the world to be cast in Iron in 1779. After that cast iron became widely used in bridges, buildings and aquaducts and it was a trailblazer for the Industrial Revolution.

We reluctantly left it behind and climbed yet again, using the very last of the juice left in the batteries on our bikes.

We are staying in Telford which is a strange place with no town centre, just large out of town shopping areas. Our hotel seems like it is on the outskirts of it.

However, on consulting the internet it says that Telford Town Centre was developed in the late 1960s and early 70s as a new town, and the Telford Centre was originally a massive indoor mall.

It is now surrounded by a Town Park and our hotel is actually right in the centre of it all!